Till Death Do Us Part
by Tempestt
Summary: Sam has an idea on how to save Dean from the crossroads demon, but convincing Dean is a whole other story.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own or make a profit from Supernatural.

A/N: This is my response to the prompt given to me by ObuletShadowStalker for the SFTCOL(AR)S summer fic exchange round three. Pimp the Limp!

Thanks to Starliteyes17 for her awesome beta skills.

Til' Death Do Us Part

"So I have an idea."

Dean's entire frame slumped at those words. He was sitting in a chair beside his bed, a grease-stained rag in one hand and his disassembled Berretta in the other. He dropped the gun onto the bed, braced his elbows on his knees and let his head droop below his shoulders. He swore to God that nothing good ever followed after those words from out of his brother's mouth. That and Sam's number one favorite, "So, I've been thinking…" Both sentences were sure to make Dean's skin crawl.

"Gawd, shoot me now."

Dean was certain that Sam had been running the hamster all day while in the car, but his little brother was nothing if not a strategist. He waited until they were stopped for the night and all of Dean's weapons were pieced out before speaking. That combination right there told Dean that whatever Sam was going to say, was bad. So bad that he waited until his big brother wasn't armed and couldn't crash the car with them both in it.

"Wait, give me a minute and I'll do it myself." Dean dropped the rag and picked up the Berretta to reassemble it.

"Dean, seriously. We have to talk."

Oh God, it was just getting worse. If Sam stayed on this track they would end up hugging or some shit. That was something to be avoided at all costs. The only arms Dean wanted around him were of the soft, feminine persuasion, and while Sam at his worse moments could be quite girly, he just didn't do it for Dean.

Sam was sitting on the opposite bed, facing Dean when he suddenly stood up and leaned over to stop Dean from reassembling his weapon, forcing him to look up. Once he was sure that he had Dean's attention, he sat back down, his long-fingered hands dangling between his legs, his eyes wide with sincerity.

Dean sighed deeply, his eyes closing for just a moment to block out his brother's face. Once he was sure that he had found his Zen spot, he reopened them, mentally prepared for anything his brother had to say. Or so he thought.

"I think I know how to save your soul."

Every neuron in Dean's brain came to a shuddering halt at those words. For the last eleven months he had been playing along with Sam's desperate search to save him from the devil, never imagining that his brother would actually do it.

The thing was, Dean didn't want Sam to save him. Sam couldn't save him. It wasn't a possibility, because saving Dean meant losing Sammy again and that wasn't something that was acceptable.

"No."

Dean dropped his eyes, picking up his gun and rag, keeping his hands busy so he didn't end up throwing punches into the wall.

"What? Dean, what do you mean 'no'?"

"Just what I said." Dean's tone was clipped, cool and removed. It drove Sam absolutely batshit.

He shot up from the bed and began to pace their small motel room. Dean didn't even flinch at Sam's ill-concealed frustration. He kept his eyes locked onto his task, his hands steady.

Sam ground to a stop beside Dean, a towering pillar of emotion.

"Dean, I can save you."

It was too much. Dean couldn't handle anymore. Everything in his life had gone to shit and now this. He shot up from his seat so quickly that Sam stumbled back before regaining his balance to stand toe-to-toe with his brother.

"I don't care, Sam. Do you hear me? I don't give a fuck. I'm not going to let you do it."

"What is the matter with you, Dean? Do you want to die that badly? Are you so ready just to give up on everything?"

"Yeah, Sammy. I am. I'm done. I'm tired."

Sam literally saw red. It was just at the fringes of his vision, so all that he saw was his brother's face haloed in a dark, blood color. He set his jaw, reached out and shoved with all his might. Dean hit the back wall so hard that Sam was almost afraid that he would go through the drywall. Normally, he would be concerned, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. He was too fucking pissed off.

"That's so goddamn unfair, Dean!" Sam screamed from between clenched teeth. Fury locked his jaw muscles so tight that he couldn't even unwind them to speak properly.

Dean hauled himself out of the dent in the plaster, fists up, and fully prepared to brawl with his little brother, but Sam was already turning his back, flinging his hands in the air above his head in frustration.

"Why do you get to fucking die while I have to stay here?" Sam spun around, shoving both his splayed hands into his own chest, his chin thrust out defiantly, and his face scrunched up in agony.

"Why do I have to stay here alone while you get to go off and be a goddamn, fucking martyr, you fucking bastard?"

Dean lowered his fists to stare at his brother. It was a sad, pussy-whipped fact, (a hold-over from his time with Jess, Dean was sure) that the only time Sam used that many curse words in a sentence was when he was on the cusp of a full-blown mental breakdown. Or he was about to be strangled, something Sam detested more than strained spinach, one of the two.

Dean was going to have to give something up here. Sam was slowly imploding the closer to crunch time it got. For nearly a year now, Dean had held it all in. He played the big brother stoicism card like a freakin' champ, but now he was going to have to fess up to something. Anything to let his brother know that he really did care. Freakin' chick flick moments. Freakin' little brothers and their, "I wanna talk about my feelings," moments.

"I'm not going to let you die again, Sam." Dean's voice cracked a little, and he had to stop and clear his throat. "I can't watch that again. I won't. I can't. It was…" _The most horrible fucking thing I've ever had to live through in my life and that includes mom burning._ "You've survived without me once before and you can do it again. You don't need me anymore, little bro. You're going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay."

Dean swiped his hand across his face, pretending that he was massaging away a headache while trying to hide the tears in his eyes from Sam. He didn't think he could do this anymore. Just a few more weeks and he wouldn't have to see Sam's miserable, hangdog expressions any longer. That's what was truly killing him, the look of longing and agony on Sam's young face every time he looked at Dean.

"Is this what this is all about? Me?"

"It's always been about you, Sam." Dean whipped his hand away from his face in a cutting motion, putting more distance between him and Sam. This was getting to be too much, too personal. "I didn't save your ass just to let you die again. That's what will happen if we try to cross the bitch. She'll drop you like road kill. Why can't you just fucking get it?"

"Yeah, Dean. I get it. You're all about saving me." Sam wouldn't allow Dean to push him away. As soon as his brother's hand dropped he invaded Dean's personal space, putting himself right in front of him. He reached out a big hand, clasping it over Dean's shoulder, his watery eyes peering down until it seemed to Dean that he was looking right into his broken soul. "But, we're not like other people. We know things that they don't. We know how to work the system, even if we shouldn't. I get it. Perks of the job. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

Dean shook Sam's hand off of him, and turned away so he could look down at his guns spread out on the bed. He didn't want to look at Sam anymore. He didn't want to be reminded of his many failures in life. Of how he couldn't protect the ones that he loved.

"What, Sam? What are you trying to tell me?"

"That I can save us both."

Dean fell silent. Slowly he turned his head so that his green eyes were glaring holes into Sam's skull. He wouldn't admit it, but dying did have its allure. To finally be free of the responsibility of his life. To no longer have to exist in a world where fucked up things happened to good people who didn't deserve it. Just to be able to rest. Simply rest. Yeah, it was tempting, but it was also fucking terrifying. Hell wasn't a place he wanted to vacation in. He was pretty damn certain that it wasn't going to be a freakin' trip to Tahiti, that was for sure, but that wasn't what twisted up his guts. It was the thought of leaving Sam alone and unprotected that really mentally screwed his brainpan.

"How's that?" Dean's tone was as neutral as possible, but Sam knew he had him on the hook, which made the next part so much harder.

"When she comes to take your soul you can trap her and exorcise her." Dean gave him a look that had _you're a dumbass_ written all over it. If it was only that easy, they wouldn't be having this conversation.

"Let's just say for the sake of argument that the bitch can be trapped."

"I already have a way." Sam spit out quickly, and Dean's lips tightened.

"Of course, you do. Anyways, so we trap her. As soon as she figures out that we are double-crossing her she'll drop you like a hunk of horsemeat. Like I told you before, Sammy, I'm not going to let that happen."

"No, she won't, 'cause I'll already be dead."

The silence that descended onto the room this time was so thick that it nearly choked them. Dean was staring hard enough to make Sam twitch. Sam expected a lot of reactions, even the one that he got. Too bad he still wasn't prepared for it.

Dean landed a left hook squarely across his jaw, whipping Sam's head back on his neck. Sam contained every urge in his body that demanded that he retaliate, holding himself perfectly still. He cocked his head, looking down at his brother from his superior height.

"You're a moron," Dean hissed, turning away from him to pace to the other side of the room.

"Dean, listen to me. I won't be dead dead, just mostly dead."

Dean stopped his pacing, his back to Sam. He glanced over his shoulder, his jade eyes glimmering with loathing. Sometimes he wondered how it was possible that his little brother could be such a genius and a complete fucking idiot at the same time.

"Do I look like Billy fucking Crystal to you, Sammy? I don't have any magic, chocolate-coated pills in my pocket, you freak."

Sam raised his hand in supplication, waving it in front of him as if he could ward off Dean's death glare.

"Look. What I mean is, all I have to do is die for a couple of minutes. Just long enough for you to do the exorcism ritual. Once the bitch is gone then a couple of ccs of adrenaline to the heart should wake me right back up."

Dean spun around to face Sam, his hand slapped over his forehead like he was trying to prevent the mother of all alien worms from burrowing its way out of his skull.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Sammy?" As soon as he spoke, Dean's face went from incredulous to mutinous. He dropped his hand, waving it at his brother instead. "You know what? Never mind. I don't want to know. The answer is no, Sam. You are not dying in any way, shape or form. Do you got that?"

He brushed past Sam, and seated himself back in his chair, dismissing the conversation entirely. Sam didn't let him.

"Look, once the demon gets sent back to Hell all collections on existing deals becomes null and void. That means you get to keep your soul, and I get to stay alive. Yeah, eventually she'll crawl her way out, but even then she won't have the power to take your soul or to kill me. The only window she has to do either is when the full year is up. If I'm dead during those few minutes then there is nothing that she can do. My soul will already be in the keeping of a Reaper and she can't take it. The only place it can go is back into my body."

"Or the Reaper could take it. What if you can't be woken back up, Sam? Did you ever think about that?"

Sam didn't answer, and Dean didn't look at him. He concentrated hard on cleaning his guns.

"Dean this could work."

"No. That's final." Dean's voice was so cold that it could have frozen lava. Sam spun away from him, facing the blank wall. He brushed a shaky hand through his long, shaggy hair.

There were a lot of things about his life that had, and still did freak him out. The yellow-eyed demon's plans for him, (scratch that off the to-do list), his supposed destiny to become evil, (yeah, whatever, bite me bitch), the fact that he had been resurrected and there was a chance that something vital was now missing from his soul, (okay, _scary_), but all that shit was doable. As long as Dean was right there beside him, Sam could take on the world. He could do anything with his big brother there to help hold him up.

"You won't do it because I might die."

"Ding, ding, ding give the college boy a prize."

Sam took a deep breath, spinning slowly to face Dean, who was still glaring at his dismantled weapons. He reached behind him, feeling the cool, pearl grip of his .45 as he pulled it from the waistband of his baggy jeans. In one step he was standing next to Dean, his gun straight along his thigh. He wrapped one strong hand around the back of his brother's neck, pinching the nerves painfully, and wrenched Dean's head to the side.

"What the fuck, Sam?"

Dean tried to stand, but Sam had the advantage of position. He bore down and his grip on Dean's neck tightened, making his brother's legs weak.

"Do you see this?"

Sam shoved the pistol into Dean's face, practically rubbing his nose in it like he would a puppy that shit on the floor.

"You are about to get your ass severely kicked, bro."

Dean shoved his arm into Sam's stomach, but it did no good. Before Dean could tell his brother to go fuck himself, Sam flipped the safety off, half-cocked the hammer to the first click and pressed the barrel of the gun to his own head. The room went completely still. Dean was pretty fucking sure that even the angels, if they existed, had stopped breathing it was so fucking still. He ceased struggling immediately, afraid that if he jostled his brother even a little the hair trigger would go off and Sammy brains would be the newest decoration feature on the walls of their craptastic room.

"Do you see me, Dean?" Sam said softly, releasing his grip on his brother's neck. He was squatting now beside Dean's chair, meeting his brother's eyes.

"Yah, I see you, Sammy," Dean replied just as softly.

Tears flowed down Sam's face, so bright and shiny they were almost beautiful. Dean hadn't seen Sam cry like that since the day he took his gun and shot Madison square in the chest. Not since the day that Sam realized for the first time that they wouldn't be able to save everyone. That maybe they wouldn't be able to save themselves either.

"The day that you die, to the minute that she takes your soul, I'm going pull the trigger on this gun. Do you understand me, Dean? If you die, I die. That's all there is to it. I'm not going to go on without you. I refuse."

Dean had lost count of the thousands of times that Sam had demanded something from him or refused to do something over the years. His little brother's petulant voice was etched across his brain like the scratches on an old record. He knew when his brother was whining just to be a whiner, but the tone that Sam was using held none of that. It was soft, earnest and truthful.

"That's fucking stupid, Sam. You're just doing this to manipulate me into doing what you want, but I'm not going to fall for it. You can make it on your own. You can do something with your life." Dean's voice was so low that if Sam wasn't right there in his face he wouldn't have heard it. That didn't detract from its forcefulness though. Dean's absolute conviction that Sam could survive without him was vibrant in every word.

"Why would you think that I would want to, Dean? What would be the point? Do you think I can just pick up my life where I left off? Go on to law school, find a pretty girl to squeeze out some kids for me and live a happy tra-la-la life?"

"Yes," Dean hissed his green eyes blazing from beneath the tears that had begun to slide down his cheeks.

"No," Sam hissed back. They were nose to nose now. Dean was leaning out of his seat, and Sam was on his knees beside him. Sam's thumb depressed, and the last click of the hammer of the .45 falling into place echoed in the room like a gunshot. All Sam had to do now was twitch his finger back and Dean would finally see what his little brother's genius brain looked like.

"Fuck waiting around, Dean. I'll do it right now and put us both out of our misery. That way you won't have to worry about me doing something crazy after you're gone. Maybe I'll just beat you to the punch. It was supposed to be that way anyhow. After all, I did die first, right?"

Dean glared hard at Sam. He thought about swallowing, but his throat was just too damned dry. This whole goddamn picture was just so wrong. He shouldn't be sitting there staring at his little brother while a gun barrel was pressed to his temple. He should be out getting drunk and laid, preferably at the same time, not wondering if he could jerk his brother's pistol away fast enough before he got brain splatter all over his favorite shirt. It was just so damned unfair. All of it. His brother's blatant manipulation. Their parents dying the way they had. Fuck. Their whole damn life was unfair.

"I hate you," Dean whispered, and Sam's lips twitched.

"No, you don't. Because if you did then you would have let me stay dead. You didn't then and you won't now. This plan is going to work, because it has to. There is no way that either of us can do this alone."

And there it was. The truth of the matter. The absolute, dead on bull's-eye, arrow through the heart, truth. Neither of them could do it alone. Well, they could, but they didn't want to, so they wouldn't. Winchesters were a damn stubborn lot. Once they had decided on something there was nothing short of the end of the world that was going to change their minds.

Sam saw the acceptance and acknowledgement in Dean's eyes, and he met it with his own. They'd give Sam's plan a shot. If it didn't work then the outcome would be exactly the same as if they hadn't tried. Two dead Winchesters, burning on a funeral pyre built by Bobby.

Dean reached out and gently took the gun from his brother's hand. He wanted to beat him into the ground with it. He wanted to hug Sam until he couldn't breathe. He wanted a different life where a gun was never pointed at his little brother.

"All right, Sam. I'll kill you."

Sam smiled, his face and eyes lightening up with genuine happiness. His two dimples flashed in his cheeks, and Dean felt the dark hole that was eating him alive widen just a bit more.

"But if you don't come back, I swear to God that I will go into Hell and drag your ass back myself."

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

Til' Death Do Us Part

Thanks to Starliteyes for sharing her wonderful beta skills with me.

Chapter Two

Sam sat on the edge of the claw foot tub, shivering and naked except for a pair of blue, cotton boxers. He curved his spine outward, pressing his arms against his chest, trying to trap as much heat into his chilled body as possible. He made no move towards the blankets or numerous heat packs piled in the corner of the room, though his highly developed survival instincts were screaming at him to do so. Instead he stared blankly at his silent cell phone that was loosely cradled in his hands.

A cold breeze wafted into the bathroom, carrying the scent of nicotine, and he looked towards the wedged-open window. Ellen was perched on the sill, one leg curled up as she hung her hand outside with her lit cigarette. White paint chips scattered onto the puke-green, tiled floor, where her foot had scraped them off the wooden window pane. She wasn't looking at the half-naked, wet man who crowded most of the small room, but out into the snow-covered nightscape.

They were holed up in a dilapidated farmhouse in the northernmost point in Minnesota, not far from the bar where Jo worked. After the roadhouse burned, Ellen had come to live with her estranged daughter, death and loss providing the bridge they needed to mend their fractured relationship.

It was late spring, but this far north there was still snow on the ground. It was old though; mostly muddy ice that cut your hands if you tried to scoop it up, but the night air still had the sharp chill of winter. Another breeze blew in from the window and Sam shivered.

Ellen glanced at him, her lips tightening as she took in the bluish cast to his skin and the dark rings under his eyes. She took another long drag from her cigarette, before flicking it out of the window and into the snow.

"Another dip?" she asked, standing up from the sill. The cracked floor creaked beneath her weight, and the scattering of dust could be heard in the silent room.

Sam stared up at her, his eyes dark with worry and despair. His emotions were so heavy that Ellen couldn't stand the weight of them and she looked away to the corner, mentally cataloging the supplies stacked there.

Sam shifted, glancing over his shoulder. The old-fashioned tub was filled half way with water, ice cubes floating on the surface. He swished his hand through the water, checking its temperature, before shrugging his shoulders. He stood up, setting his phone on the edge of the sink, and leaned down to pick up another bag of ice. He ripped it open, emptying it into the tub. Icy water splashed over the rim as the level rose a bit more.

For the last hour, Sam had intermittently immersed himself into the tub, first just his limbs, and then his core, slowly but surely dropping his body temperature so he wouldn't go directly into shock. Between dunks, he sat quietly, bare feet on the tile, wet and shivering. It had been the longest, most dreadful hour of his life. He was sure that if he asked, Ellen would agree.

The phone chirped and rattled across the counter. Both Sam and Ellen froze, staring at it like it was heralding the end of the world. Cautiously, Sam reached out his trembling hand, barely able to grasp the small rectangle. His brow furrowed with concentration as he urged his numb fingers to press the buttons needed to check his text messages. There was only a one word message from Dean on the screen.

"Now," Sam muttered, placing the phone reverently onto the counter, far enough away from the tub that it wouldn't accidently get splashed with water. He thought he heard a small sound of protest from Ellen, but when he turned to look, her face was impassive.

She cut her eyes away from him, and began to roll up the long sleeves to her red and black checkered shirt. Sam dropped his gaze, and silently stepped into the freezing tub of water. The first time he had gotten in, the air had been sucked right out of his lungs it had been so cold, but he had long since started to lose feeling in his feet and hands. Now the shock of the water wasn't nearly as intense, but he could still feel the cold seep into his bones, freezing the blood in his veins.

He braced his hands on the edges and squatted down, a long hiss of air escaping between his teeth as the water crept up his body. His knees locked in protest and he could feel his genitals curl inside the cavern of his body in a desperate retreat from the icy cold. He clenched his eyes shut, and kept his lips clamped together as he lowered the rest of his body into the water, until he was reclining in the tub.

Ellen came up behind him, and his shoulders automatically tightened. She made no move to touch him, but it felt like she was towering over him.

"You're too tall. You're gonna hafta prop your feet up."

Sam nodded in acknowledgment, but he made no effort to lift his feet out of the water and onto the lip of the tub. He could feel Ellen shift her weight behind him, and he knew that she was taking this just as hard as he was.

"Any last words?" she asked softly.

Sam shook his head, his blue lips still tightly clamped together. He and Dean had said everything there was to say the prior night. Both of them knew that there was a good chance that they both would be burning on a pyre by daybreak. Bobby and Ellen had their instructions if they didn't survive. Their bodies would be burned together until there was nothing left but scorch marks on the ground, then the ashes were to be raked over and a tree planted on top. They wanted nothing to remain of the Winchesters, no way possible for them to come back.

Dean had wanted Bobby to burn the Impala too. There was so much of their blood soaked into the upholstery that if they were to haunt something then it would be that old car. Dean wouldn't admit it, but a tear or two slid down his face when he told Bobby what to do. The thought of his beautiful baby being reduced to burning rubble was almost as upsetting to him as the thought of his little brother with a bullet in his head.

Sam had been standing behind him when Dean made the request, his body bowed with misery. Over his brother's shoulder he met Bobby's sad eyes and quietly shook his head. Dean never saw the nearly imperceptible tilt of the older man's chin, but Sam did. He wouldn't burn the Impala. He would keep her as pristine as Dean did; a monument to the greatest hunters he had ever met. He might regret it in the future, but it wasn't as though he didn't know how to put spirits to rest if that were to be the case.

A tremor traveled through Sam's entire body that was half from the freezing temperature and half from regret. He tried to think how they had come to be at such an impasse; where the struggle to simply live meant killing who they were. Death had been a constant companion since he was six months-old. There hadn't been a time when he hadn't known that he could die at any moment, or that his father or brother could be killed. He had struggled with that knowledge his entire life, rebelling against it until the only recourse that he had left to him was to run as far away as possible, straight into the waiting arms of 'normal.'

He had thought college was the answer, but it had been nothing more than a bandage on a seeping wound. A bandage made crusty with the dried blood and sweat of his past so that when it was finally torn off, a part of him went with it. Its removal was so painful that he still screamed with the agony of it in his dreams.

After Stanford, Death had moved back into its rightful place as his shadow, following him wherever he went, but no longer was it in the form of a werewolf's claw or the angry backlash of a spirit. Now Death was the bullet in his .45 as he aimed it at his temple. It was a desperate pact with a devil for just a little more time. It was the freezing cold bath in an old farmhouse in the middle of a pitiless night. Their most fatal enemy now was themselves.

Sam began to slide beneath the water, his breath freezing in his lungs. His first instinct was to inhale, to store as much oxygen as he could in his lungs before going under, but he fought against the urge. As the water closed over his face, he exhaled, pressing all the air that he could from his body. His eyes closed of their own accord, and he could hear the muffled tinkling of ice as the water sluiced around him.

Fingers wrapped themselves around his shoulders, no pressure, just their presence. Sam opened his eyes and above him, through water and ice, he could see the shadowy figure of Ellen as she leaned over. His lungs began to burn and the edges of his vision flickered white. Instinctually, his body started to convulse as his muscles locked up from the lack of oxygenated blood. His veins ran sluggishly, and he could feel a cold press of weight around his heart.

The fingers on his shoulders tightened, and weight bore down on him, keeping him immersed in the water. His rational mind tried to stay in control, but his animal brain panicked. He wanted to grab the delicate wrists attached to the hands that held him down and break them, wrench them away until he was free.

He lifted his hands out of the cold water, and tried to wrap them around Ellen's forearms, but his frozen fingers wouldn't respond. His weakened body, from repeated exposure to the cold, couldn't find the energy necessary to fight for survival. He opened his mouth to scream, but only water flooded in, drowning his throat and lungs.

His eyes widened, and he flailed wildly, unable to coordinate his limbs. His vision began to darken, and his numb fingers slipped against wet skin. All the sudden, every ounce of strength left him, and his arms flopped lifelessly back into the water. Above him, he could still see Ellen's form, but it was blurring away into shadows. The burning in his lungs lessened, and for a fraction of a second he thought he saw Dean's face swim before his eyes, but then he saw nothing but darkness.

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The darkness was infinite. He wanted to look around but he couldn't seem to move his body. A steady dripping sounded in the distance. Repetitive, endless, eternal. The sound echoed around him until he could feel it slide down his spine to gather at the small of his back.

The edges of the darkness blurred with light that suddenly flared. Sam clenched his eyes closed, raising his arm defensively across his face. A few minutes passed and he blinked, dropping his arm to look around.

He was back in the cold bathroom, but he didn't feel half-frozen anymore. The window was still open, and his feet were still bare, but he couldn't feel the air on his skin or the tile beneath his toes.

He turned towards the bath, his entire body becoming paralyzed at what he saw. Ellen was still standing over him, pushing his head beneath the water. His long, naked legs were dangling over the edge of the tub, and he could see his toes curling reflexively. Her checkered shirt was soaked to the skin, and a dark stain was spreading on her blue jeans where the water from his struggles had splashed her.

Her lips were compressed into a thin line and Sam could see something haunted flicker over her rigid face. She began to relax her grip on his shoulders, but then his leg kicked out and her face hardened even more. She bore her weight down on him, keeping him submerged until there wasn't a single tremor in his body.

"Fascinating, isn't' it?"

Sam whipped around to face a petite woman with short dark hair who stood in the doorway. Her eyes were sympathetic and he could see that the corners of her rosy mouth were pulled down into a pout of sadness.

Something profound shimmered through his chest, and he felt his throat tightened with indecipherable emotion. A shiver of recognition traveled up his spine, and he stepped back from her.

"Who are you?" he demanded and he flinched when his voiced bounced off the walls. He glanced back at Ellen, but she showed no signs of hearing him.

"You can call me, Tessa." The woman disappeared from the portal, and Sam was driven to follow her. He walked away from his body, only glancing back once before walking out the door.

Immediately, he knew that he wasn't in the farmhouse anymore. In fact, he wasn't in Minnesota either. They were walking along the flatlands of a high desert. A full, fat moon rode high in the clear night sky, casting the tall two-armed cacti into dark relief. He half expected to hear a lone coyote howl in the distance, but maybe that would be too much. Sam glanced around him, seeing chunks of red rock and scrub brush lining a well-used animal trail. He thought briefly that he should put some shoes on, but the rough ground didn't seem to be hurting his bare feet at all.

Ahead of him he could see the curve of the woman's back as she walked away, and he hurried along the path, his much longer legs catching up to her easily. He peered down at her, the shiver of recognition growing stronger.

"Do I know you?"

"We've met."

All at once, memories that were absent while he was alive slammed into him. Recollections of the last time he died. The feeling of weightlessness as he hovered above his body, the grief he felt at seeing his brother cradle his still-warm corpse, the anger as he watched Jake run away. She had been present for it all, hovering beside him, whispering in his ear.

"You're the Reaper," Sam breathed, and Tessa tilted her head towards him, amused.

"I wouldn't say that I'm _The_ Reaper. I'm just _your_ Reaper."

Sam's brow furrowed as he stayed in step with her as they walked across the desert. His natural curiosity got the better of him, his resolution to stay near his body forgotten, along with the reasons why. In the back of his brain, the wisp of a memory scrabbled for recognition, but every time he tried to bring it to light it slipped away into the darkness.

"You're my Reaper? Do you guys, like, get assignments? Or something?"

Tessa threw back her head and laughed, her kind eyes dancing with mischief.

"Something like that, but usually we take a liking to a certain family and will cater to them."

A ghost of a thought crossed Sam's mind, and his lips screwed up into a moue of consternation.

"Were you the Reaper that Dean was hunting when he was in a coma?"

Something dangerous flashed in Tessa's eyes and she no longer looked harmless and kind. His memories of his last death were becoming clearer, and he seemed to remember this line of questioning from the previous time. His questions and her flash of anger that followed after.

"You were always the quick one, Sam." She smiled at him, hiding her upset behind straight, white teeth. She flashed him a knowing look, and he was sure that he had pestered her plenty with a myriad of questions the last time.

"I've been reaping Winchesters since before you were known as Winchesters."

The rough ground gave way to smooth stone and Sam glanced down at his feet. White marble gleamed in the moonlight, and he could see a fine layer of red dust at the edges where it met the desert floor. He looked around, realizing that they were now standing on a stone pad in the middle of the desert. He had no idea how they could have approached it without him noticing it. Twisted white columns lined the pad, thrusting up into the sky, announcing their presence dramatically. He would have to be blind not to see them.

He glanced behind him, trying to remember where they had come from, but the memory was elusive. It seemed that he was supposed to be doing something, but Tessa's presence beside him was soothing and alluring, like a siren's call in the wind. She led and he followed.

"Did you reap my father?"

Tessa's brow furrowed, and the dangerous intensity in her eyes returned. Sam could see anger etched over her face, and he swallowed compulsively.

She wiped the fury from her face, her expression becoming impassive as she shrugged in response.

The columns opened up into a ring, and he forgot his question as shadowy figures appeared. A large loom dominated the makeshift room, and he could see that three women crowded around it. Something hard and heavy clunked in Sam's chest, and he skid to a halt to stare.

The first thing he saw was Jess's beautiful profile. She wasn't looking at him, and her long blonde hair was obscuring some of her face, but he would recognize her anywhere. She had been the love of his life, the other half of himself. She had been all the best parts of _normal_ during his life at Stanford. She had been the embodiment of everything that he had been striving for when he was running from who he was and trying to remake himself into something he wasn't.

He stepped towards her, but Tessa wrapped her fingers around his forearm, pulling him to a stop. He tried to tug away, but her grip was stronger than any mere mortal's. He glared down at her, a snarl of anger twisting his lips, but she just shook her head at him slowly. Something about her subdued manner, made him pause, and he felt fear skitter, spider-soft, across his nape.

He glanced back at Jess, noticing for the first time what she was doing. In her hands was a long strand of crimson thread. She ran her fingers along the length almost reverently, and Sam shifted his weight, uncomfortably aware of her caress. More thread was fed to her, and the movement drew Sam's gaze to the side.

His mother, he knew it was his mother, because he used to spend hours staring at her photo, was spinning thread from her distaff onto the spindle. He felt his stomach clench, and his thighs quivered a little from shock. He watched as she expertly spun the thread, smiling at Jess like a mother would a daughter.

"Something is missing. The repair is flawed."

Sam whipped his head to the third woman, instantly recognizing the voice that spoke. Its softness still haunted him in his dreams. Madison sat on the edge, a large pile of thread beside her. In one hand she held a pair of chipped, bladed scissors and in the other she held the thread. She was staring intently at it draped across her outstretched palm.

The other two women paused and peered at the thread she held. All three women frowned at the knot where it had obviously been cut then tied back together.

"Another repair may not hold." Jess sounded worried, and Sam felt himself silently echoing her sentiment.

"I made him strong. It will hold," his mother vowed with conviction, and Sam felt some of the tension in his stomach resolve.

Jess frowned down at the length of thread that she held protectively in her hands.

"But I worry. I can only guide him, not guard him." She stroked the thread, and Sam felt something shimmer along the length of his body.

A flutter of disgust passed over Madison's face as she glanced over at Jess. Mary watched the interaction between the two younger women with the resignation of a mother who cannot help her children.

"It matters not." Madison's voice cracked with distraught emotion, and Sam was suddenly struck with the urge to cry. "Everything dies."

With that pronouncement, she took the thread that Jess had measured and snipped it clean through with her shears. Pain exploded through every crevice of Sam's body, and he dropped to his knees, gripping his chest. He cried out with agony of it, but the three women never looked his way. Only Tessa acknowledged his cries.

She leaned down, placing a small hand on his rounded shoulder. "It's time to go now, Sam," she said softly.

He could feel the draw of her call, the pulling of his soul to follow her. He wanted to stand up and go where she led. The urge, the absolute _need_ to take what she offered reverberated inside of him. In the reflection of her eyes, he could see peace and tranquility. Finally he could have what he had been searching for his entire life---quiet simplicity.

He rocked to his feet, his eyes drifting shut when her hand curled inside of his. She drew him forward and he took a step, only to grind to a halt when the niggling memory in the back of his mind came crashing to the forefront. With perfect clarity he could see the look on Dean's face when Sam told him that he would rather die than live without him. He recalled the lethal sobriety of the pact that they had made that if one didn't make it back alive then the other would quickly follow. The ramifications of Dean surviving this night, only to find Sam dead, shook him. Dean would put a bullet in his brain before the sun rose this morning. It was an all-or-nothing deal, until death do they part.

"No." Sam yanked his hand away. Tessa looked at him, her eyes still sympathetic.

"Sam. It is time for you to go," she cajoled, but he ignored her. He turned around, stalking back the way they came, but after a few steps he was met with a brick wall.

"There is no going back."

Sam whipped around, his face a mask of fury and desperation. He had to get back to Dean. He had to keep his end of the bargain.

"No! I refuse to believe that. I made a promise and I'm going to keep it. Dean is waiting for me, and I _will not_ disappoint him."

With every word, Sam advanced on the Reaper, backing her up with the force of his emotions. He couldn't fail Dean, not when he could protect him. Not now, not when it was so imperative that he succeed.

Tessa's rosy mouth pulled down into a miserable frown, and the sympathy in her eyes intensified.

"Dean is already dead."

Everything in Sam that was vibrating with fury and need shattered into small shards of razor glass that slashed him up on the inside. His trembling body stilled until he was as rock hard as the marble column next to him. He stared down at the much smaller woman, his mouth compressed into a hard line.

"No. I don't believe you," he spat out from between thinned lips.

"It's true." She reached for him, but he pulled away.

"Prove it."

She lowered her dark gaze, eyeing the marbled floor at their feet. After a moment, she shrugged fatalistically, her eyes meeting his.

"Fine."

The room around them swirled sickeningly, and white marbled columns gave way to weathered gravestones. It took a moment for Sam to gain his bearings, but when he did he swayed against a tombstone, catching it before his knees buckled, tears already crowding his eyes.

Dean lay prone before the devil's gate, the crossroads demon standing over him chortling victoriously. Dean's skin was waxy, and Sam could see blood coating half his face. Everything that made Sam who he was crumbled inside of him, eroding the very foundation that he stood upon. There was only one truth in Sam's world. Dean would always be there for him. Dean would always destroy the monster in the closet. But how could he if he was dead? How was it that the one time that Dean had needed him, Sam had failed. It didn't seem possible, but maybe love alone just wasn't strong enough to conquer demons.

Sam stared hard, willing Dean to breathe with every ounce of his battered soul, but his brother's chest remained deathly still.

"It's time to go, Sam."

Tessa was standing beside him. She reached out, looping an abnormally strong hand around his arm to pull him away. He let her, his eyes still locked on the still body of his brother.

"No," he breathed, unable to believe what his eyes were showing him.

"Yes," Tessa replied forcefully.

Sam's eyes hardened into chips of stone at her tone, and his face became shuttered. With a burst of strength he shook her off, his fists clenching at his sides. He would not give up on his brother, because Dean would _never_ give up on him.

"No, you lie. You use tricks, deceit and illusion to get your way. Anything to collect your soul. But I refuse to go. You hear me? Dean's alive!"

Sam felt something pulse in his chest, and the dark landscape gave way to a brightly lit room. He saw a flash of white light, and then he was standing beside Tessa in the graveyard. He wavered on his feet, and he felt the ground sway. Pain spiked though his heart, and he brought his hands up to clutch his chest, only to stare aghast as they flickered before his eyes.

The light flashed again, and the room reappeared. He glanced around, spying the empty tub in the farmhouse, water standing in puddles around the curved feet. He twisted to the side; his mouth gaping in horror as he saw his wet, naked body sprawled out on the floor.

Ellen had wrestled him out of the tub and onto a blanket. She had piled hot towels and warm compresses onto his torso, tilting his head back a little so the blood could return to his brain. She had been careful to leave his limbs uncovered to avoid after-drop, a fatal complication when cold blood from the limbs is forced back into the core.

She placed a face mask around his mouth and nose, infusing warm, humidified oxygen back into his cold lungs. Her fingers fumbled while placing electrodes onto his chest so she could shock him with the portable defibrillator Dean had stolen out of an ambulance. She twisted the dial and his limp body shuddered then fell still. Sam shivered with the realization that it wasn't working.

"See, Sam. It's time."

Tessa tried to wrap her fingers around his bicep again, but he shook her off. He knelt beside his body, face to face with Ellen. Tentatively, he reached out to touch his chest, his fingers passing right through his body.

"C'mon, Sam. Dean is going to kick my ass if you die on me," Ellen muttered, checking his pulse one more time. She dropped her head in defeat when she felt nothing.

"Don't give up on me, Ellen," Sam begged, reaching out to brush his fingers along her face. She trembled and turned away, digging through a bag at her feet.

With determination she drew out a large syringe from the duffel, popping off the protective lid. The adrenaline was already loaded and all she had to do was inject him. Sam swallowed as Ellen lifted the needle above her head, ignoring the tremor that he saw go through her arm. She paused for a moment, taking a wet, choked breath before plunging the syringe downward into his chest. It pierced through his thick muscles, straight into his heart. She depressed the injector with her thumb, pulling the syringe out when it was empty and tossed it behind her.

For a second there was nothing, and then Sam felt the strangest pull. It was gut deep and ice cold. It yanked him from existence, dragging him from the white room and into darkness. Pain exploded through his entire frame, and it felt like his lungs were both on fire and being crushed simultaneously. His body convulsed, muscles locking with spasms. Soft, sure hands rolled him over onto his side, pulling the mask from his face. Something cold and wet rolled up his throat and spewed out of his mouth and onto the floor. Suddenly he could breathe again, but when he inhaled it seemed like ragged shards of ice cutting his lungs.

Coldness engulfed him, wracking him with tremors. Heated blankets were wrapped around him and he cherished their meager warmth. From somewhere above him, he could hear a woman's voice repeating the same mantra.

"Thank God," she whispered into his ear, her warm breath soothing him.

As Sam faded out, his last thought before the darkness took him was that Dean should be there with him.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed. You guys are awesome!! Special thanks to Starliteyes for taking the time to beta for me. One more chapter after this. Let's see if I can keep these guys alive!

Til' Death Do Us Part

Chapter Three

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The whole freakin' plan was stupid. First of all it hinged on the crossroads bitch being gun-hoe on collecting his soul herself instead of sending her pet Chihuahuas with shark teeth after him. Yah, 'cause she seemed like the kind of girl who believed in an honest day's work and would _never_ send someone or something else to do her dirty work for her. Secondly, they had to cross their fingers and toes that she didn't figure out that it was _all just a big freakin'_ _trap._ 'Cause really, she was just a natural blonde beneath all that dark hair that she usually sported. Dumb as a box of rocks, right? _Right?_

Oh and let's not forget the real reason that this whole butt-fuck plan was winning the Academy Award for stupid. Umm, let him think. Oh, yeah. Sam had to _**die!**_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. What the hell was he thinking when he agreed to this shit?

Oh, yeah, now it was coming back to him. Sam pressing a gun to his head, sobbing like a freakin' girl, and swearing up and down that he was just going to kill himself anyways if Dean didn't do what he wanted him to do. Freakin' spoiled little brothers and their _guns!_ Dean knew when Dad handed Sam that .45 all those years ago that he would regret it someday. Dean just always thought that Sam would threaten to shoot him while in some girlie PMS snit, not the other way around.

If they lived through this, Dean was taking away all of Sam's weapons and locking them in the trunk. He wouldn't be allowed to look at them, much less touch them. If they needed to kill something then Sam could just glare at it with his bitch-face petulance and the thing would likely break down and sob right there on the spot.

If Dean had looks that could kill, then Sam had looks that could traumatize for life. Dean was feeling a little bit traumatized himself after dealing with his brother's emotional blackmail. Maybe if they lived through this he should think about getting some therapy. God knew he could use some. Maybe there was someone Hunters used that wouldn't freak out at the mention of demons. Dean thought about it for a good three seconds before he rolled his eyes. The only therapy he needed was a bottle of Jack, a willing woman and the knowledge that his little brother was alive and happy.

Yah, that so wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He was miles from a bar, his brother was in another state probably half-way to dead and the only willing woman that would be strolling by anytime soon was going to have sulfur breath. So, yeah. His night was sucking hardcore.

"Dean, Dean, Dean."

He hunched his shoulders at the sound of his name being breathed out like he was chocolate bar being waved under a three-hundred pound woman's nose. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, wrapping his fingers around his cell phone. His thumb was already sending out a one word text to Sam and Bobby as he turned to face the bitch that had been kicking him around like a freakin' wounded puppy for the last year and half, since he first summoned her to save Evan Hudson from his ill-fated deal to heal his ailing wife.

_Ironic_¸ she was wearing a blonde's body this time. Dean tried not to smile at that. Like usual she was drop-dead gorgeous and he had to wonder where she had dredged the woman up. Dean knew that there were homesteads around, but he figured most of the residents would be distantly related to the Benders by looks if not by blood. The demon bitch must have some sort of embedded homing device that allowed her find the most attractive body for miles around. A vain demon, who knew?

"I have to say, you are looking absolutely delectable. It's all that abject misery. You wear it so well."

Dean shrugged half-heartedly, keeping his green eyes locked on her. He had to distract her long enough to let Bobby do his job, (oh, and for Sam to _**die!**_) which meant a little dance and flirt, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"You know me. I look good in anything."

She smiled at him, and he felt his insides shiver just a little.

"I bet you'd look even better in nothing at all." Her tongue darted out to slick over her red lips, and for a second Dean thought for sure that it was forked, but then he blinked and he saw that it was just a normal human tongue.

Yep, his dick just shriveled up a little at the blatant innuendo in her tone. Some of his discomfort must have shown on his poker-cool face because the corners of her mouth curled up. She was smiling at him like she knew something that he didn't, and that made him very, _very_ nervous.

"Interest choice of places to hide out in." She motioned with her hand, encompassing the old cowboy graveyard with a wave.

Dean gave her a dead bored look, his mouth drawn into a straight line.

"I don't think its hiding, standing in front of a Hell Gate waiting for a demon."

"It does seem odd, you waiting so patiently for me."

Dean fought the urge not to shift and give away his unease at her words. If she knew that she had walked into a trap she hadn't given any indication of it yet. Maybe he had given her too much credit. She was awfully cocky. He knew there was a lesson in that observation, but it eluded him.

"I'm not one of those dumbasses whom you usually make a deal with. I know exactly what I was getting myself into. It would pointless to run. There is no place to go."

He tried to sound defeated and it wasn't that hard. Even if Sam wasn't forcing this little plan into motion, Dean would have still sat quietly waiting for the bitch to show. He knew the truth of his words. You couldn't hide from a demon looking to collect. There was no place between Heaven and Hell big enough to get lost in.

Right now Bobby was out in the darkness, trying to shore up the last gap in the old iron railroad that had created the Devil's Trap in the first place. A hundred years ago, Samuel Colt had created the ingenious layout while trying to protect the Hell Gate from being opened up by an ambitious demon. A year ago those rails had been tore up by the hundreds of souls that had escaped from Hell when the yellow-eyed bastard drove Jake into opening the gate. The rails had curled back, creating gaps that rendered the Trap useless, but for the past few weeks, Bobby and Dean had walked the lines shoving cut iron into the breaks and welding them until only one hole was left. The bitch was about to be trapped in the biggest cage in history and she didn't even know it. Maybe she really was dumber than he gave her credit for.

Suddenly, the demon whipped her head to the side, her crystal blue eyes reddening as she glared out into the dark grove of trees beyond the broken-down fencing surrounding the graveyard. The hairs on Dean's arms stood on end, and he could feel the faint crackle of power in the air as the Devil's Trap was snapped into place.

She reeled back around to face him, her upper lip peeled back over white, even teeth. She was reaching for him before the energy could settle and suck her strength. She wrapped her hands around the labels of his leather jacket, heaving him into the air. As he flew backwards he could hear her snarl, an animalistic sound that couldn't possibly be made by a human throat.

"You bastard!" she screeched.

Dean collided with the metal door of the Hell Gate, the tight skin on his brow splitting on impact. He must have blacked out for a moment, because when he came to the first thing he felt was something warm and sticky coating half his face. Above him he could make out the blurry features of the demon bitch as she chortled over him.

"You think this Trap is going to prevent me from dropping Sammy-boy like road kill, you little fuckshit? My hounds are scratching at his door right now," she hissed, leaning low so she could spit every word into his face.

Dean's lips tightened into a thin line before he kicked out his foot to land a blow on her upper thigh, staggering her. He shot to his feet, desperately ignoring the wave of nausea that crashed over him. He focused his blurry eyes on her to anchor his spinning head. She straightened, her fists raised, but Dean was faster. His fist lashed out, punching her square across the jaw hard enough to land her on her delectable little ass.

The benefit of a Devil's Trap was that it rendered demons powerless. They couldn't use their hoodoo mind grab on you and they only had the physical strength of their hosts to rely on. Essentially, Dean was beating the crap out of a girl, but he tried not to think about it too hard.

Dean dragged out a wad of rope that he had shoved down the back of his pants, unwinding it so he could bind the demon's hands. She came to just as he was finishing hogtying her. She blinked at him for a second before her lips peeled back into a familiar snarl.

"You've just made the biggest mistake of your life and Sam's going to pay for it."

Dean ignored her and fished out the incantation that Sam had printed out for him before he left. He unfolded the paper, clearing his throat before speaking. The demon's eyes widened as she recognized the Latin exorcism.

"You think you can cheat me, Dean? You send me to Hell and I'll take your baby brother's soul with me. Stop now and I'll let him go where he belongs. To the other side. To all that white light and shit. Let me go and it will be just you with a one way ticket to The Pit, but if you do this, I swear to all that's unholy, I _will_ make sure that Sammy goes with."

Dean's green eyes flickered to where she lay at his feet, but he quickly looked away, his words barely faltering. It was too late to go back now. Sam was already dead, lying in a cold water bath in northern Minnesota. His little brother insisted that would be the best way. Something about the freezing water slowing his metabolism and increasing his chances of being fully revived. Normally, Sam would become brain dead after five minutes, but the water was supposed to extend that time by at least twenty minutes. Dean knew for a fact that it was all bullshit. Dead was freakin' _**dead! **_His only chance to save his brother was to exorcise the bitch as quickly as possible and call Ellen to revive him.

He hoped to God that this worked, because if it didn't he was going to have to march into Hell himself and slaughter every single demon down there until he found Sammy. If they thought he couldn't do it, then they were dead wrong.

She jerked on the ground, snarling and spitting. He wasn't even half-way through the incantation when suddenly her head whipped back on her shoulders, her mouth wrenching open obscenely. Black smoke began to gush from her throat, swarming above her delicate face like a cloud of flies as it expelled.

Dean knew she was imprisoned inside the Devil's Trap, but it encompassed a hundred square miles of Wyoming bush. For the exorcism to work the demon had to be able to hear the chant. In her shadow form she he could lose herself for hours, but Sam only had a few minutes.

Dean reacted on instinct. He lunged forward, sealing his mouth over hers. The black smoke rushed down his throat, filling his lungs and stomach until it felt like he was going to burst. His eyelids rolled back and his eyes bulged in their sockets from the intense pressure.

All at once he felt hot and cold. His stomach was filled with boiling acid and his heart froze into a block of ice in his chest. Insidious whispers wound their way through the cracks and crevices of his brain. Hate and anger surged inside of him while the love and protectiveness he felt for his brother receded. The demon screamed at him to rip the flesh from his own bones, to bleed the bitch at his feet dry. Dean was barely able to resist the cries that clamored in his head.

For the moment, Bobby's dime store charm against possession was worth its weight in gold as it formed a barrier between what was quintessentially Dean and the evil that had invaded him. Dean knew that barrier wouldn't last for long. The demon writhing around his insides, rearranging his organs was furious and determined to destroy him.

He collapsed onto the ground, his jaw tightly clenched. He stared sightlessly up at the diamond-studded sky as he tried to focus on anything other than the squirming in his guts. In the distance he could hear the heart-wrenching sobs of a woman, but he couldn't form a thought as to why she was there with him. A huge part of him wanted to climb to his feet, reach for his gun and protect the helpless woman from whatever was frightening her. Screams ricocheted around in his brain, scratching and clawing at his skull and he echoed them out loud. Distractedly, he realized that he was what the strange woman was terrified of.

He writhed on the ground, before suddenly becoming boneless. He was dead-weary, his eyelids impossibly heavy. They drifted closed and quiet whispers began to lull him to sleep with promises of how much better everything would be after a good night's sleep.

Images bombarded him as his eyes closed. Visions of Sammy laughing at him after gluing his hand to his beer bottle. Sam curled up and scared in the backseat of the Impala after his first hunt. His tears at their father's funeral pyre. Sam's lifeless five-year old body on a ratty hotel bed. His lifeless full-grown body on a dirty mattress. The grimace that stretched across his lips when he found out that clowns really do kill.

The hurt, betrayal and despair in Sam's eyes when Dean finally revealed Dad's secret.

The memory of Sam crouched at his feet with a loaded pistol to his head. The determination on his tear-streaked face as he swore that he would rather die than go on without Dean. Sam's promise to pull the trigger before the night ended if the demon took Dean's soul.

The demon punched his kidneys from the inside, clawed at his liver, and snarled in his brain, realizing that its tenuous grasp on his psyche was loosening.

Dean's mouth opened of its own accord and Latin spewed out. It was broken at first, as if he had forgotten how to speak. His throat felt like he had swallowed fire and his jaw ached worse than if he had been kicked in the face. Soon the words came faster, smoother, the paper forgotten as the memorized passages flowed out of him.

He could feel the demon trying to escape her cage of flesh and bone, but Dean's sheer force of will cleaved her to him. He finished the words and his mouth was wrenched open, his jaw cracking with the force as the demon was expelled from his body. She screamed into the night air, breaking down into nothingness as she was pulled back into Hell.

Dean could feel his body deflate, the pressure decompressing. His organs fell back into place, and his rib bones settled after being splayed apart. He reeled with the agony of it, realizing just how much damage she had done for those few minutes. He coughed and something thick and wet flooded his throat. He was barely able to twist onto his side before choking on his blood that spewed past his tongue and teeth, coating his lips crimson.

He thought about just lying there and dying. It would be so easy. The siren's call of it was intoxicating. Every cell in his body hurt, every receptor was spiking with agony. He closed his eyes, and his long lashes got tangled in something tacky. He pried them open, his vision coated in red as his eyes bled.

Dean reached into his coat pocket, every movement sheer agony. His fingers wrapped around his phone and he pulled it out, his arm flopping onto the ground beside him when he was done. He was panting from the exertion of that simple action and he could hear the wet gurgle in his lungs that boded bad things for his breathing in the near future.

He tried to focus on the illuminated buttons on his phone, but he was still having a hard time seeing. Right at the moment, Sammy was dead. Not dying. _**Dead**_. Ellen was waiting on his all clear so she could revive him, but if Dean couldn't get his lazy fucking ass in gear it was going to be too late.

"Dean!"

Bobby's gruff voice cut across the night like a knife and Dean shuddered at the sound of it. Rough hands gripped his shoulder, pulling him around to lie on his back. He groaned, his eyes fluttering as he nearly lost consciousness. He forced his eyes open, meeting Bobby's concerned blue gaze.

"Sammy," he managed to whisper with a broken voice.

He tried to move his thumb to dial, but the last vestiges of his strength left his body in a whoosh. His vision began to darken around the edges, and Bobby's imaged wavered. The only thing he could think of was that Sammy should be there with him.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I know that I said in the last chapter that this would be the end, but apparently I lied. I didn't mean to lie, but this story has just taken on a life of its own. There will be at least another chapter after this, and probably an epilogue after that. We'll see. I hope you guys continue to enjoy, and remember reviews feeds the muse!

Thanks to Starliteyes for lending her awesome beta skills.

Til' Death Do Us Part

Chapter Four

Sam and Dean were dying.

Separate.

Alone.

Isolated.

After Ellen revived Sam she called 911, making up some half-cocked story about finding him in the pond out behind the farmhouse. The EMTs weren't interested in the how and why, as much as they were interested in what treatment was needed to keep Sam breathing.

He was admitted to the nearest hospital with hypothermia and lung damage. With so much cold water in his lungs, it was inevitable that he developed pneumonia. As strong and healthy as Sam was it should have been easy for him to fight off the infection, but as the hours passed his health only seemed to deteriorate. It was as though he had no more fight left in him, and he was allowing himself to die slowly but surely.

After the showdown with the demon, Bobby high-tailed it to the nearest Wyoming hospital where Dean was admitted with severe internal hemorrhaging. The doctors were at a loss to explain how such wounds were possible when there was little external proof of impact or crushing damage to his torso. They immediately rushed him into surgery, repairing the damage to his organs and prescribing medication to help his wounds clot.

After twelve hours of surgery, he was placed in the ICU. For three days, Bobby sat by his side, murmuring words of support. For three days, Bobby drank bad coffee and ate stale food. For three days Bobby prayed for Dean to wake up from the coma he had fallen into.

8888

When Sam woke up, he knew immediately that something was wrong. He stared up at the bleached white ceiling trying to pinpoint the reason for his unease. There were tubes taped under his nose and the nauseating taste of antiseptic at the back of his throat made him gag. In the background he could hear the steady hiss of the oxygen as it was fed to his lungs. He tried to swipe his hand over his face, but was brought up short by a tight tug on his wrist. He had been injured enough times over the years to know instantly that he was being reined in by an I.V. He recognized where he was at, maybe not exactly, but he was in a hospital and that was familiar, so his surroundings weren't the source of his unease.

He slowly glanced around the room, his eyes settling on the dark form that was slumped in an uncomfortable looking chair next to his bed. When his blurry gaze finally focused enough to make out who was sleeping next to him the unease in his gut sharpened into a painful stab deep in his intestines.

Ellen was sitting vigil at his beside, not Dean. Dean wasn't there. Dean was gone. There was only one reason for it. Dean was dead.

Dean was _**dead!**_

Sam let out a keening wail that jerked Ellen into consciousness with an aborted scream. She hurried to his side, wrapping her strong, work-calloused fingers around his thick wrist. He shook her off, raising his hands to his face so he could press the heels of his palms into his burning, sandpaper eyes. The I.V. snapped and he could feel the stinging jab of the needle all the way in his bicep.

"Sam! What's wrong?"

Ellen's voice was far away, barely able to penetrate the haze of his grief. He had failed. All his planning; all his hard work; all the promises he made to save Dean burned to ash in his dry, torch-blown mouth.

Dean was dead. There was no point in going on. The oxygen hissed, and Sam sobbed.

Ellen reached for the call button, certain that Sam was having some sort of seizure after suffering with such a high temperature for the last few days. She drowned in guilt as she sat by Sam's side. For the thousandth time she cursed herself for listening to the Winchester's half-baked scheme to cheat the crossroads demon. It had been foolish and thoughtless. Holding Sam's head under the cold water had been one of the worse moments of her life, only eclipsed by the day John Winchester showed up on her doorstep to tell her Bill was dead.

"Dean's dead."

Sam's softly sobbed statement stopped her cold. She didn't know how it was possible for him to infuse those two tiny words with such a wealth of agony and loss. She dropped the call button and clutched his hands, pulling them away from his face with quite a bit of effort. His eyes were tightly clenched, his face screwed up in heart-wrenching misery.

"No, Sam. Dean's alive."

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did Sam cracked his eyes to look at her. Her breath caught at the sight of hope and despair mingling in the muddy deaths of his bloodshot eyes.

"If that were true then he would be here."

Ellen dropped her eyes to stare at their hands that were still tangled together in his lap. She wasn't sure what to say. It was true that Dean was still alive, but for how long was anyone's guess. He was in critical condition in a hospital in southern Wyoming. The doctors said that his insides had been shredded with razor-like precision, and everyone was at a loss to explain how. Even Bobby had no idea exactly what went down in the graveyard that night.

"Sam," she started, but the words choked off. She was filled with such an overwhelming sense of dread that it nearly suffocated her.

Sam twisted his hands over so he was the one now gripping her fingers. He squeezed and even as weak as he was she could feel the strength of his grasp.

"Dean's hurt real bad. They don't know if he's gonna make it." The words cut sliced the tension in the room like an executioner's axe. The look in Sam's eyes told her that she might as well take out her gun and shoot him through the heart. Frantic, she scrambled to soothe his despair.

"They said the same about you, honey. But look at you. Speaking to me when no one thought you would ever wake up again. You've been out for three days. The fever nearly did you in."

Sam looked away from Ellen, his thoughts drowning out her words. Dean wasn't dead yet, but he was dying. He was lying in a hospital bed somewhere all by himself. Sam should be there next to him, holding his hand like Ellen was holding his.

"Where is he?"

"Wyoming," Ellen answered in a small voice, but that quickly changed when Sam threw back the covers to his bed.

"Sam. What do you think you are doing? Get back into bed, boy."

He managed to wrestle himself upright and swing his feet off the bed, but that was as far as he got. Fire burned his lungs and suddenly he couldn't breathe. A coughing fit nearly doubled him over, and if Ellen hadn't been there to catch him he would have fallen off the bed.

"Didn't you hear me, Sam? You nearly died. You still could. You aren't nearly recovered. You could relapse any minute now."

Sam wrapped his long fingers around Ellen's upper arms, holding her to him until he could draw a breath. He was pretty sure that he might suffocate if he went too long without the enriched oxygen the respirator was pumping into his lungs, and he dared not to take out the tubes. Once he got himself under control, he looked up at Ellen who was trying desperately to push him back onto the bed.

"Ellen," he rasped and her wide brown eyes met his. "I have to get to Dean. He needs me. He needs to know that I'm okay. That it's okay to keep living."

Ellen blinked at him, and something painful spiked through her heart. There was a bond between the brothers that as a mother she could just barely comprehend. They needed each other, needed to know that the other was safe and healthy, as if their own life hinged on the other's wellbeing. That need had only deepened over the last two years, as destiny seemed to open its back door to take a crap on them every chance it got. But what Sam was saying, that was just crazy talk.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sam. Dean's unconscious and Bobby is right beside him. As soon as Dean wakes up, he'll tell him that you are okay." She tried to push Sam back, but for a man who had been at death's door for the last seventy-two hours he was amazingly resistant.

"No, Ellen. I have to go now. If I don't, then Dean will never wake up."

Sam's utter conviction in his voice was for the lack of a better word, creepy. She wondered if it had something to do with his psychic ability. Did he have a vision while unconscious? He had been legally dead for almost ten minutes. Had he seen something while on the other side? Ellen shivered and tried to pull herself together. She was a no-nonsense woman, and while by trade she believed in all things that go bump in the night, the thought of Sam being Dean's only connection to the living was a little farfetched even for her.

"Sam, there's no way that you're going to make the drive hundreds of miles to Wyoming. Maybe you don't realize how sick you are, but there's a good chance that you'd die before we even get there."

"That's a chance that I have to take. Either you can help me, Ellen, or you can stand by and watch me do it myself."

The steel in Sam's voice lacerated her across the heart. She cringed as his fingers tightened on her upper arms. She knew that she would end up with bruises where his fingers pressed into her soft flesh, but at the moment she didn't care. She was more interested in the intensity she saw in Sam's eyes.

She sighed with resignation, untangling herself from his grasp so she could gather up his clothing for him. She helped him to get dressed before she slipped out the door to find him a wheelchair. It was late in the evening and the ward was nearly deserted. The only reason she was allowed in Sam's room after visiting hours was because she had convinced the staff that she was Sam's mother. As inconsolable as she had been when he was brought in, it hadn't been that much of a stretch.

She came back with the wheelchair, relived to see that Sam was still sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, waiting for her return. After a lot of grunting she was able to get him situated, setting an oxygen tank that she stole in his lap and fitting a mask over his face. There would be just enough air to get him to Wyoming that was if he didn't die from a relapse before then. Already she could see his cheeks redden and his eyes had that shiny glint that screamed fever.

The drive to Rock Springs in southern Wyoming was torturous. Ellen drove white knuckled, her ears straining to hear Sam's wheezing breaths in the dark cab of her truck. He was slumped against the passenger door, his huge body huddled into a small ball. Every once in a while he would groan and mutter. At one point she reached across the distance to place her hand against his brow. His skin was so hot that it nearly burned her.

In South Dakota she pulled over and roused him enough to drink some bottled water. He didn't want it at first, but she refused to go any further until he drank it all. After that he was barely conscious, and all through Nebraska Ellen chewed on her fingernails. By the time they hit the Wyoming border all of her fingers on her left hand were bloody and she was making a good start on her right.

Bobby met them at the backdoor of the hospital, having already disabled the alarm for the emergency exit. Somewhere just past the Wyoming border, Ellen had called him to say that she was hauling Sam's ailing ass his way and after they stopped screaming at each other like an old married couple with four kids and two mortgages, they agreed that it was best to sneak Sam in the back way.

Sam was in bad shape and there was no way the hospital staff was going to let him walk through the front door without checking him out. They both were of the mind that once Sam saw his brother and was assured that he was still breathing, they would call the docs to fix the boy up.

Bobby hadn't realized how sick Sam was, and Ellen had been feeling too guilty to fess it up over the phone. Unprepared, he hadn't bothered to bring a wheelchair for Sam who was near collapse. Another round of bickering echoed down the mint green corridor as Ellen and Bobby, Sam's long arms slung over their shoulders, ambled to Dean's room.

Rock Springs was a small town and Dean was the only person in ICU so thankfully he had a room all to himself. Ellen had driven through the night and most of the day, arriving at the hospital at supper time. Most of the nurses were in the other wing passing out dinner trays so they were able to slip into Dean's room undetected.

"Dean."

Sam tried to lumber over to Dean who was lying deathly still on the bed, his skin waxy against the soft, pastel pink sheets, but he didn't have the strength to hold himself upright. Where Dean was pale, Sam was flushed; he had been alternating between feverish chills and cold sweats the entire trip. His shaggy, brown hair was matted with sweat, his eyes burning with near delirium.

The only response from Dean to his brother's call was the steady beep of his heart monitor. His eyes were sunken, dark, and so very, very still beneath the red, paper thin lids. Ellen and Bobby helped Sam closer, listening with fear to the boy's labored breathing. Sam's oxygen tank had run out before they hit the edge of town and his raspy breaths had gotten worse with every passing mile.

They angled Sam down into a chair next to Dean, stepping back to look at each other in question. How much longer should they wait before calling someone, they wondered?

Sam instantly reached for Dean's hand, threading their fingers together. He wanted to say something profound to Dean, to tell him that everything was all right, that he was there for him, that they were alive, and he could come back from his little vacation to unconsciousness anytime now, but he couldn't. He was too tired, his eyes were too heavy and breathing was too much of a chore. He leaned forward, resting his head on Dean's bed near his brother's hip, their hands still laced together.

If Dean was awake he would jerk away, spit at Sam to get off him, while calling him a girl, but Sam didn't care. All he wanted was for his big brother to wake up.

"What's going on here?"

A doctor walked in, his hair perfect, his coat blindingly white. His footsteps had been Hunter- soft on the scrubbed linoleum, and Bobby was ashamed that he had been caught so off guard by his sudden appearance. Ellen found her tongue first, and stepped forward between the doctor and Sam.

"That's Sam, Dean's brother."

The doctor looked at her sharply, his small brown eyes assessing her in one sweep.

"And you are?"

Ellen paused, somewhat nonplussed and more than a little exhausted from her marathon drive through four states.

"Their mother," Bobby supplied, stepping up next to her.

The doctor's gaze never wavered and both elder Hunters were left with the impression that his skills were wasted in the backwater town of Rock Springs.

"Well, then Mrs. Donnelly. Can you tell me what's wrong with Sam?"

Ellen's brow furled at the address. She would have she figured that it was the name supplied on the Dean's insurance card, if she hadn't felt Bobby shift uncomfortably beside her. Huh, the doc thought she and Bobby were married. Wasn't that a kicker? Bobby must have told the staff that he was Dean's father so he could stay in the ward after hours.

It wasn't hard to miss that Sam was sick. He was practically weeping illness from his pores, so she wasn't surprised that the doctor had caught on even though he had barely glanced at the boy.

"Pneumonia." She saw no reason to lie, knowing that Sam needed assistance as soon as possible anyways. However, she wasn't prepared for the doctor's reaction. His cold mask slipped into incredulous disbelief as he gaped at her.

"Are you serious? Do you have any idea how delicate Mr. Donnelly's condition is at this time? How could you bring his brother into the ICU while he's carrying such an aggressive communicable disease? What is the matter with you two?"

Ellen's jaw dropped before she snapped it shut with a snarl. The last time a man spoke to her like that, he got an ass full of buckshot and he never came back. Fortunately for the doc, it went against good manners to open fire in a hospital. Sick people and all.

"We didn't think---"she murmured, but was cut off.

"That's right you didn't think. Why don't you just release diseased rodents into the halls while you're at it?"

The doctor rushed from the room before they could reply, his thunderous calls for a nurse echoing behind him. Ellen and Bobby exchanged identical looks of murder, but made no move to interfere. They both knew that Sam needed treatment right away; it didn't matter if the doctor doing so was a complete ass.

If Sam heard the doctor he gave no indication of it. His head was still nestled near Dean's hip, and miraculously his breathing evened out as he slipped into a state of near unconsciousness. Only Ellen seemed to notice, since she had spent the last day and half with him listening to every little hitch. She was amazed that the simple act of sitting close to his brother seemed to ease his breathing in a way the oxygen tank could not.

The doctor returned with a pair of obscenely large male nurses, exciting the room into a flurry of activity. He busied himself with checking Dean's vitals while the nurses who looked like they would rather be deer hunting, tried to wrestle Sam into the wheelchair they had brought. As soon as Dean's limp wrist slipped from his fingers Sam jerked upright into consciousness. Sam's fever-glazed eyes scanned the room and he came to one instantaneous and damning conclusion.

They were trying to separate him from Dean.

"No!"

Sam erupted from the chair, two hundred and forty pounds of fury that topped out at six foot four, his lips peeled back to reveal sharp, white teeth. He snarled in a manner that was not unlike a hungry, lean wolf standing over the last piece of meat in a cold, hard winter. The entire room swelled with angry energy, the nurses stepping back, and the doctor flinching on the other side of Dean's bed.

Sam's big hand whipped out and he wrapped his long fingers around his brother's wrist. For a handful of seconds nobody moved except for Sam who swayed hypnotically, grounded by wide feet, his pupils blown with fever.

Finally, Bobby stepped forward, his voice a low rumble, the words slathered so thick with his good ol' boy accent that for a minute no one could understand what he was saying. He approached Sam like he would a beaten, half-dead dog that was backed into a corner. Hand held out, palm up, eyes downcast.

His words manifested themselves into a string of soft soothing assurances and promises that no one was going to make a move on him or his brother. Sam let him approach, everyone in the room holding their breath as Bobby eased him down into the wheel chair, taking care that Sam's grip on Dean wasn't broken.

The hospital staff had no concept of the extremity of the danger, but their brains were screaming _Warning! Volatile! Stand Back!_ as loudly as they could. They had their share of dangerous people hyped up on drugs and adrenaline, but never before had they been in the room with what was so obviously a predator. Ellen shivered safely behind Bobby, knowing what the doctor and nurses did not. If Sam, half-crazed with fever, thought anyone was a threat to his brother, they would be dead before they hit the floor.

Bobby nodded, and the staff moved through the room in a soundless ballet, the doctor passing a syringe to a nurse who passed it to Bobby. Only the man's soft murmuring, the boy's now strained wheezing, and the steady ping of the machines was heard in the room.

Sam barely noticed when Bobby injected him in the arm. His shoulders were already drooping with exhaustion, his entire attention fixated on Dean. A nurse, feeling it was safe, took hold of the wheelchair and slowly pulled it away from the bed.

"No!"

Sam clenched his fist around Dean's wrist, leaning forward, but was unable to stand as the sedative swam through his blood. The other nurse rushed forward, trying to pry Sam's hand away.

"Dean! Dean!" Sam croaked in panic and Ellen wrapped her hand around her throat to choke down her own cries. Feverish tears leaked from Sam's red eyes, and sweat glistened on his wide brow.

The nurses kept pulling and the gap between the brothers widened. Dean's arm was stretched off the bed, and Sam's fingers were slipping. With one last heave they were separated, one nurse wheeling away Sam while the other fussed over Dean.

The entire room cringed when Sam's head lolled back on his neck, his eyes sightlessly glaring at the ceiling as an agonizing scream ripped from his throat. The howl echoed down the halls, ricocheting off the sickly green walls.

The doctor followed Sam out of the room, casting a sympathetic glance back at the 'parents' who stood together in the wings, their faces identical masks of misery.


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks to Starliteyes for looking this over, and for reminding me which chapter we are on. Duh! I'm a dork. LOL

Til' Death Do Us Part

Chapter Five

Dean was drowning in blood. It lapped against him in thick, vicious waves, congealing in his nose and mouth. It was warm and silky against his skin, drawing him down into soothing darkness. He would have allowed himself to sink to the very depths of the crimson ocean where there was no more pain or burdens of responsibility, but Sam's voice kept tugging at him. The frantic desperation of it calling him to action.

He swam upwards against the tide, the pressure nearly unbearable. He tried to breathe, but rivers of blood choked him. He kicked his feet, but he became tangled in sinew and veins. He arched his back, fighting against the pull of flesh and bone, flailing towards the surface of consciousness. Sam's voice faded and the pervasive press of desperation tightened its stranglehold on Dean. He reached out, his questing fingers seeking his brother, only to fall disappointingly short.

Dean surfaced from a haze of red, grunting softly as pain raced to greet him. He could feel the syrupy, sweet thickness in his veins from morphine, but pain still settled into his muscles at a dull roar. He kept his eyes closed, counting backwards from ten while stowing his pain away into small, manageable compartments. By the time he reached zero, the pain was a persistent whisper in the back of his mind, but he was capable of focusing beyond it.

He could hear the steady breathing of someone sitting beside him, but he knew immediately that it wasn't Sam. He could recognize his brother's presence from across a dark room with nothing more than a heartbeat to guide him. He cracked his lids, thankful that the lighting was dim, and slid his eyes to the side. Ellen sat next to him, jaw propped on her hand as she stared blankly into the corner of the room.

Memories flooded Dean's mind, the most prominent of which was that Ellen was supposed to be with Sam. She was the one that was in charge of holding Sam's head under the cold the water. She was the one who killed Sammy.

He had to concentrate on controlling the anger that prowled to life in his chest. Rationally, he knew that he shouldn't be mad at her. They had come to her with their proposal. Sam had used every ounce of his puppy-dog charm to persuade the older woman to kill him, while Dean had sat wordlessly by, scowling and impotent. It wasn't her fault, but that did nothing to stifle the urge to he felt to pummel her to death.

Covertly, he scanned the rest of the room. If Ellen was there then Sam should be too. His rage gave way to terror when he couldn't see any of the normal signs of his brother's presence. There were no half-empty fu-fu coffee cups littering the room or any hardback books left on the window sill. There was nothing except Ellen. The last person to see his baby brother alive.

"Sam?"

The word was whispered softly and it carried with it a faint metallic taste. He slicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to drum up enough spit to swallow. He was rewarded with a burst of salty residue on his tongue and lips that could only be blood.

Roused from her thoughts, Ellen glanced towards the bed.

"Dean," she expelled his name in a relieved sigh. She reached for his hand, but he twitched away from her. Ellen retreated quickly, a knowing stir of shadows lurking in her eyes. Sam may have asked her to kill him while sporting a smile full of sweetness and light, but Dean wasn't likely to forgive her for the sin of drowning his willing brother any time soon.

"Thank God you're awake. You've been unconscious for nearly five days."

Dean ignored the concern in her voice, his entire being centered on the only thing that mattered.

"Sam?"

Ellen's face flickered for the barest instant before she shuffled on her no-nonsense mask.

"He's fine, Dean. He's just resting."

From the way her eyes cut away from his, Dean knew that she was lying. Something was wrong with Sammy and Dean needed to get to him. Dean needed to save him.

"Where?"

His voice cracked and Ellen could hear the anxiety stretched thick behind it.

"Downstairs. He'll be back to visit you as soon as he can."

Before she could say anything else, Dean pushed back his covers. Ellen was struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu.

"Oh, no. Not you too. You are staying put, Dean Winchester. The docs said that it was like someone took razorblades to your insides. You just don't get up and walk around after something like that."

Dean ignored Ellen, focusing long enough to pull the I.V. from his arm. The pain was back with the force of a brigade. It took him a moment to realize he had a few more tubes stuck in him, one of which was in a very sensitive place.

Well, he had been asleep for five days.

He thought about asking Ellen for help, but one look at her bitch-mutinous face and he decided against it. He reached between his legs not all that surprised when Ellen didn't look away. She was just that kind of woman. She had that hardcore mother vibe about her that screamed _I changed your dirty_ _diapers_, even if she hadn't. Goddamn, if sliding the catheter out didn't hurt like a _bitch!_

"Dean, you stop that right now. I'm not going to do this with you like I did with your brother."

"What do you mean?"

"Your mule-headed brother was so desperate to get to you that he made me drive him here all the way from Minnesota. Now his lungs have darn near given out and he's got a tube shoved down his throat so he can breathe."

She swiped up the call button, the muscles in her forearm fluttering with tension when Dean's steely fingers wrapped around her wrist. She met his green eyes, mentally flinching at the coldness and desperation inside them. Coldness for the woman who murdered his brother, and desperation to touch Sam before he slipped away again.

Ellen swallowed hard, briefly wondering if Dean had enough strength in his stitched-together scarecrow body to hurt her. She had always been a little bit afraid of Dean. Some Hunters were convinced that Sam posed the most danger of the two, but Ellen knew better. Sam had a conscience, while Dean was willing to do or kill anything to protect him.

"I have to get to Sam, Ellen."

"Sam has pneumonia. You can't be in the same room with him. And even if I do help you to get to him, the docs are just going to wheel you right back out again."

"My being there won't hurt him."

"He's contagious. He could kill you."

"It doesn't matter. Sam risked coming all this way for a reason. I didn't do all this---"_Sell my soul, let Sam kill himself, fight off a goddamn demon invasion, only to let some pathetic disease take him out. _"I won't let him die, Ellen. I can't do that again."

"Yah, and how do you think Sam is going to feel when he wakes up to find out that he killed his brother?"

Dean threw her hand away from him in frustration.

"He'll survive without me. He's strong that way." _He doesn't need me like I need him._ "I have to make sure he's okay. I have to touch him with my own hands and know that his heart is beating."

Ellen couldn't argue that. She couldn't deny the raw, physical need reflected in Dean's eyes. She had already been down this road before, and it had almost killed Sam. Right now, the boy was unconscious, maybe dying, his weakened body fighting off another fever. What she needed was back-up.

"Wait here."

Ellen rushed from the room to find Bobby, hoping that Dean would think that she was going to help him. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't. Dean was half-dead, and Sam was contagious. As much as they wanted to be, they just couldn't be in the same room together.

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Dean knew by the way that Ellen wouldn't meet his eyes that she wasn't going to help him. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, gasping when spears of agony lanced through his insides. His eyes watered with the intensity of it, and he had to blink a few times to clear his vision.

Determined, he slid off the bed, bracing his hand against the foot rail to steady himself as he stood. He stared studiously at the floor, trying to gain his balance. He felt woozy from inactivity and blood loss, and black dots danced in front of his eyes.

His gaze fell onto Ellen's purse that was half shoved beneath the bed. Inside he could see the metal glint of handcuffs. He wasn't surprised. Restraints were part of any Hunter's everyday arsenal. He bent down, nearly heaving up his empty stomach as he snatched them from her bag. Slowly, he straightened, allowing the rush of light headiness pass before shuffling forward. He frowned at the breeze he felt on his backside. On the back of the bathroom door was a scruffy, blue robe left for the patients, and Dean took the time to shrug it on. By the time he was done, he was drenched with sweat and pressed for time.

He glanced down the hall, relieved when he saw no sign of Ellen or the nurses. Across the way there was an emergency door that led to the stairs. He quickly limped over to it and slipped inside. In the stairwell he leaned against the cool metal railing and looked down the long spiral of cold, cement steps. Even though he was just going down to the next floor, it felt like he was descending into Hell itself. It was going to be a long-ass painful walk.

It took Dean a while, but he made it to the next floor. Sweat was pouring off him in sheets now, and his color had gone from flushed to waxy. He paused in the hallway, momentarily desperate. He had no idea which room Sam was in, and stopping to ask for directions from the nurses was not an option. That would get him slung back into his own bed faster than he could name off the band members to Blue Oyster Cult.

It turned out that he didn't need to worry, he found Sam on his first try. Dean had to wonder at that, but he didn't examine it too closely. Dean gave his soul to save Sam. Sam had willingly died to save Dean. They were connected by unseen bonds of sacrifice that couldn't be explained by the rational mind. They could find their way to each other from dimensions apart, legions of demons between them.

The room was empty aside from Sam. Dean ambled forward, making no effort to be quiet. To his way of thinking, it was time for his wussy little brother to wake up anyhow. No need for him to go scaring all the pretty nurses the way he was, with that tube shoved down his throat. Dean swallowed and tried not to think about how bad Sam looked.

Dean reached Sam's side, and he laid a heavy hand across his brother's heart. Dean could feel the rise and fall of Sam's chest, and the thready beat of his heart beneath his palm.

"I'm here, little brother. Time to get your lazy ass in gear and start healing up. You know I don't like hanging around one place for too long, and we got evil to kill."

Sam didn't respond, but Dean thought he felt his heart beat a little steadier. Dean smiled and looked around the room, spotting an empty bed a few feet away. The convenience of hospitals is that everything is on wheels. He was able to push Sam's small nightstand out of the way, and roll the other bed close to his brother's.

With a relieved sigh he crawled up onto it, lying back onto the flat pillows dizzily. All of his energy was used up and he felt empty. With the last remaining vestiges of his waning strength he snapped the handcuffs around his and Sam's wrists, binding them together before falling into a healing sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

It should be noted that I have nothing against Wincest, but everything has its place, and its place is not in this story. Of course if you are wearing slash-tinted glasses you can see it here, but it's not intended.

Thanks to everyone for all of your wonderful reviews. I wouldn't have finished without your support. Thanks to Starliteyes for her infinite patience as well.

**Till Death Do Us Part**

Chapter Six

"Are you kidding me? Where could they have possibly gotten handcuffs?"

Ellen took that as her cue to slide out the back of the room, escaping into the corridor. Even as frustrated as she was with the Winchester boys, she hadn't quite yet washed her hands of them. However, there was no way she was going to fess up to owning the cuffs that were now currently gracing their wrists. She decided that a tactical retreat to the cafeteria was best, leaving the doctor and Bobby to sort it out.

The night nurse had found Dean before Bobby and Ellen. Once the nurse had realized that her patients were bound together she had immediately paged their doctor, who had been sleeping soundly in his own home next to his very lovely wife. He was, of course, reasonably upset at the intrusion.

It took him an hour to get to the hospital, and in that time the nurse had placed a sterilized mask over Dean's mouth and nose in an effort to keep him from becoming infected. Neither boy stirred as she checked their vitals and drew blood.

Being as efficient as she was, the nurse also sent an orderly on a scavenger hunt for anything that could separate the two men. He returned, disappointingly empty-handed, without either a key or bolt cutters. The nurse, whose mouth was now pressed into a firm line of irritation, told him to go buy a cutter at the nearest hardware store, whereupon the young man responded smartly that there were none open at such a late hour.

The woman's chocolate eyes narrowed and the orderly straightened his stance in response. Bobby, who was watching the exchange very closely, thought there was a very Gray's Anatomy vibe to the whole thing. Not that he would know anything about that, or that Denny fellow who reminded him of someone, though he just couldn't put his finger on whom.

They were about to square-off when the doctor walked in, looking far too groomed for a man who had been forced from his bed at such an ungodly hour. Bobby grimaced and took a step back further into the room and out of the way.

One look at the brother's bound wrists and the doctor became a notch less composed.

"Why on earth would they do something like that? Do they _have_ a death wish?"

This time the doctor's outburst was directed at Bobby, who shifted uncomfortably at the attention. He shrugged nonchalantly, unsure on how he should answer the question. After all, the reason that the two boys were laid up in the hospital in the first place was just a whole mess of insanity, and there was no way that the older hunter was going to explain the details to the doc.

The doctor slashed his hand in the air at Bobby's disappointing response. It didn't really matter anyways. What they needed to do was to find some way to separate them.

"Nurse, call the police station."

"Doctor?"

The doctor's head swiveled dangerously on his neck and he pinned the nurse to the floor with beady eyes. Bravely, the woman stood her ground with only the slightest tremor.

"Where else do you propose that we get a key?"

The woman's eyes widened in response, and she nodded quickly. "Oh. Yes, of course." She glanced meaningfully at the orderly who darted away to do her bidding, grateful to be out of the room and away from the sniping doctor.

"Uh, Doctor."

The woman approached cautiously, holding out a stack of charts.

"While we were waiting, I took the opportunity to check their vitals."

The doctor snatched up the brother's charts with a glare, and flipped one open, expecting the worst. He scanned the pages, his mouth screwing up into a mix of confusion and frustration.

"It says here that their conditions are improving. Samuel's breathing has evened out and his temperature has dropped. "

He shuffled the charts around, flipping open Dean's.

"His blood work shows a decrease in white blood cells. The infection that was building in his kidneys has nearly dispersed."

The doctor snapped the files closed, and stared at the two unconscious brothers.

"This doesn't make any sense."

"Sir, if I may."

The doctor scowled at the nurse, but made no move to shush her.

"What if it's similar to co-bedding? You know, where siblings take comfort in each other's presence."

The doctor's scowl turned into an icy frown, and the nurse ducked her head.

"That's ridiculous. That theory only works for ill newborns who have shared a womb. These are two full-grown adult males."

Bobby stepped forward, clearing his throat. He had his dirty, gray ball cap twisted up in his hands, but his blue eyes didn't even flicker as he met the doctor's disdainful gaze square-on.

"These boys have been sharing the same room, sometimes the same bed, for nearly their entire lives."

The doctor and the nurse both shot Bobby a shocked look that had him flushing beet red.

"Not like that! They're _brothers. _They work a damn dangerous gig, and the only people they can rely on to watch their backs are each other. Sleeping would not be easy for them if they were alone. Even unconscious they would be waiting for an attack. However, if you keep them together, they are going to get the rest that they need to heal up."

Bobby shot the doctor his best pleading look, which was pretty damn pathetic, but soon the nurse joined in and batted her concerned eyes at him. The doctor looked down at the irrefutable proof in his hands that the brothers had improved once they had settled in together, his lips pursed in consternation.

The doctor gave the brothers one more long, appraising look that ended in a resigned scowl before turning on his heel to exit the room. Bobby could hear him ordering the nurse to monitor the patients closely and if there were any negative changes to separate them immediately.

Bobby stepped up to Dean's bedside, his hat still twisted up in his meaty hands. He could see the lax set to Dean's jaw, and it wasn't until that moment that he realized for the last week it had been tight, even while unconscious. Now that he was next to his brother, his entire body was relaxed.

Sam no longer looked flushed, and Bobby could see a healthy color returning to his cheeks. It wasn't lost on him that Sam had turned his head so he was facing his big brother, his fingers stretched along the edge of the bed as if reaching for Dean.

"I got to hand it to you boys. Even knocked out, you drive people crazy wherever you go."

Bobby chuckled a bit before leaving to ferret out the boy's yellow-bellied _mother_ who had left him alone to deal with the hot-shot ass of a doctor.

8888

It was deep into the night. The hospital floor was still with only a couple of nurses on duty and the on-call doctor napping in the quiet room. Hours after being reunited with his brother, Sam's breathing had evened out until he no longer needed a respirator. Dean's vitals had improved and he was in no danger of seizing, so his heart monitor had been removed. A police officer had arrived hours earlier to remove the handcuffs, but the nurses kept their beds pushed close together, whispering the whole time about how loyal and handsome they were.

Their room was silent except for the brother's light, even breathing and the faint echo of the nurses as they chatted about the latest Survivor episode. So when Sam's breathing hitched, Dean instinctively woke up, his green eyes flickering to the side. For the first time in days the brothers were conscious at the same time, but that was no reason to have a big, emo-girly moment. They were Winchester men after all.

"Nightmare?" Dean's voice was raspy with misuse, and he could still feel the burn in his esophagus where the demon had forced its way down his throat.

Sam's pupils dilated and it took a minute for him to gain his bearings. It was too dark to be a hotel room and he didn't recognize his surroundings. It was the antiseptic smell that clued him in on the fact that he was laying in a hospital bed.

"Yah. I dreamed that I died and you went to Hell."

Sam's voice was steady, but his hand crept out from beneath the thin covers. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around Dean's thick wrist, feeling the steady beat of his brother's pulse.

"Never happened, Sammy," Dean responded softly, taking comfort in his brother's warm fingers around his arm.

Neither of them felt the need to mention that Sam had died briefly or that Dean had been a heartbeat away from being a meat puppet forever damned. They could swap tales later, after they were healed. Dean would skew his story until he sounded completely heroic and never even close to being in danger. Sam would claim that he couldn't remember a thing about being dead, even as the faces of his mother, Jess and Madison flashed through his mind.

For the moment, both brothers were satisfied that they were alive, not possessed or in danger of going to jail, and were finally together. They sat quietly, until Dean's raw words shattered the silence.

"I can't do this again. Dad is dead, mom is gone. You are all I have left, Sammy."

They had learned long ago that the darkness was meant for confessions. In the harsh light of day, neither of them would admit their fears or insecurities, but at night, when they lay side-by-side, they had often told each other their deepest secrets. When Sam had gone away to school, the comfortable ritual had been lost, but the rules had not been forgotten. What was said in the dark stayed in the dark, and it absolutely was not allowed to be used as fodder for brotherly ribbing in the daylight.

"Same here, Dean. You are all I've got too."

Dean shifted in the darkness, and Sam knew that his brother disagreed with his statement. Dean always thought that Sam had more going for him than he was willing to admit. Sam had the ability to make friends, and to endear people to him within minutes of meeting them. Sam could make a family, a home, anywhere he chose to go, while Dean could never find that sort of easy freedom.

"Promise me that you won't die again," Dean murmured quietly, almost to himself, but Sam heard him.

"Promise me that you won't put yourself between me and danger again," Sam shot back.

Dean didn't reply and Sam fidgeted under the silence, his momentary flash of anger dissolving away into sadness. They were both asking for promises that couldn't be fulfilled.

"Everything dies, Dean," Sam quietly told the night.

"I know that."

"I'm going to die someday." Sam pushed, and under the cover of darkness, he could feel Dean vibrate with tension.

"I'm not stupid, Sam," Dean's response was justifiably scathing, but Sam didn't let it deter him.

"You have to promise that when that day comes you'll let me go. Don't ever trade yourself for me again. Do you understand?" Sam tightened his grip on Dean's wrist, expecting him to pull away in anger, but his brother remained still beneath Sam's hand. This, at least, was a promise he could extract and expect to be fulfilled.

"Yah, I know. It's just--" Dean sounded so defeated that something clenched, hot and tight, in Sam's chest.

"What?" Sam whispered, almost afraid to hear what Dean would say.

"I can't…I don't want…You are all I have left, Sammy."

They sat quietly shoulder-to-shoulder, listening to each other's breathing. The shrouded darkness of the room only solidified what they both already knew. They were alone in the world, with only each other to rely on. No one could truly understand them, not even Bobby or Ellen. They were the last Winchesters standing. No one knew what it was like to be them.

"Yeah." Sam paused, thinking hard before he spoke. "I don't want to be without you either, Dean, but we are going to die and in this line of work it's going to be sooner rather than later."

"The demon is dead now. Maybe you could---" Dean sounded desperate, and the hackles on the back of Sam's neck rose at the tone.

"What?"

"Get back to the normal life you've always wanted."

Sam sighed deeply, knowing this conversation was long in coming.

"And what about you, Dean?"

"What about me?" Dean's bewilderment broke something inside of Sam. When was it that Dean had ended up so fragmented? So worthless in his own eyes that he felt he didn't deserve the happily ever after he was so intent on getting for his brother.

"Are you going to settle down with me? Open a garage or something?" Sam was back to pushing, and Dean started shifting away again.

"Nah. That normal shit isn't for me." Sam could see beyond Dean's words to the meaning beneath them. Dean wasn't normal, and normal was never going to accept him. "Saving people, hunting things. That's what I do."

There was a significant pause, and Sam could feel a hole where words were left unsaid.

"But?" he asked.

"I just wish---" Dean didn't finish, but a light bulb went off brightly in Sam's head.

"That people would thank us more?" Sam finished, asking for Dean what he couldn't ask for himself.

Dean shrugged, and Sam could feel the flutter of his forearm muscles beneath his fingers. Though Dean had tried to slide away, Sam had retained his grip on his brother's wrist. Sam wasn't ready to let him go. He thought maybe he would never be ready to do that.

"I'm not going to do it you know," Sam blurted out, and he could feel Dean's confusion.

"Do what?"

"Quit."

"Sam." Dean drew out his brother's name, as if by deeply intoning it he could change Sam's mind on the matter.

"No," Sam snapped out, interrupting Dean. "I'm not going to leave you. We are in this together, until the end."

"Sam, this is the end. The yellow-eyed bastard is dead, and we put a pretty sizable dent in the demon population this year. We could get you a new life, a new identity."

"Dean," Sam echoed his brother's long drawn out sigh. "I've been thinking about it."

"About what?"

"Why you've never settled."

Dean shifted again, and Sam tightened his grip.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked uncertainly. Sam swiped his thumb over Dean's fluttering pulse comfortingly.

"Well, there's the obvious guilt. If you stopped hunting who would die because of it?"

"Everyone has a choice." Dean was mutinous, rebuking his own argument now that it was being used against him by his brother. He wanted Sam to have a normal life, but the same want just didn't apply to Dean.

"Yah, but if I knew that by walking to the store I would have the chance to save some kid in the street from being run over by a drunk driver, but instead I decided to drive and avoid the entire thing. And because I wasn't there to push him out of the way of the car that kid dies, what kind of choice is that?"

"Sam, life doesn't have to be about sacrifice. If you know that you have to die to save that kid then you should get into your car and drive the other way."

"Oh, yeah, Dean? What would you do?"

The silence in the room was heavy, and there were no more arguments to be made. Dean would walk down the street and save the kid every damn time, and smile while doing it.

"Besides, that's not the real reason, is it?" Sam barreled ahead, ignoring Dean's flinch.

"It's not?"

"If you settled down in one place, then you run the risk of meeting someone like Carmen."

"Hey, Carmen was hot," Dean deflected, but Sam ignored him.

"You told me that you could have loved her," Sam said softly, a whisper in the dark.

Dean's response was even softer, barely heard above their quiet breathing.

"Yah, so?"

"I never told you this, but when I was with Jess, I was scared all the time. I would freak when she was out after dark by herself or home alone. I used to trail her around campus to make sure she was safe. She never knew, and if she did she probably would have called me a stalker and ran as fast as she could the other way, but that didn't stop me. It was like I was obsessed with making sure she was safe."

That was a confession he never expected to make. Not long after meeting Jess he realized that he couldn't stand the thought of her being hurt. A lifetime of seeing the monsters in the dark made him jump at every shadow that shifted. During their time together he had been hyper aware, placing himself between her and the door at all times, walking her to the library or to class. She thought he was sweet and protective, but she never realized that he would wake up at night and obsessively pace through their small apartment, checking hidden salt lines, and staring intently at the darkest corners of the room.

"Yah, but Sam, you knew what was out there in the dark."

"Exactly. How are we supposed to live when every night we expect to see the women we love burning up on the ceiling? Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. With Cassie, with Carmen," Sam's voice was accusing and finally Dean was able to shift far enough away that he dislodged Sam's hand from his wrist. For a split second Sam panicked at the loss of contact, but he quickly recovered, his keen ears honing in on the sound of his brother's breathing, and his dilated pupils making out the darker lump of Dean's body beside him.

"How are we supposed to have normal, knowing what we do? How can we let our wives walk out the door without us to go grocery shopping, to PTA meetings or to work?"

"Speak for yourself, Sammy. There are just too many women out there for me to settle down. No one woman can satisfy, Dean Winchester." Dean smirked smugly, but his words rang hollow in the dark room.

"What about kids, Dean?"

Dean swallowed hard at the question, and he tried to ignore the vision of them as children, riding around the countryside in the Impala.

"What about them?"

"Do we raise them like dad raised us? Constantly moving around. Weapons training. Hand-to-hand. If you have a daughter, Dean, will you teach her to wear a low cut shirt to hustle pool?"

"Hey, don't talk about my kid that way." Dean tried to joke, but Sam was at full steam.

"Or do we teach them nothing and send them off to school unprotected?"

"Sam, you need to shut up with all this moral dilemma crap and do what makes you happy." Dean snapped sharply, finally fed up with Sam's dead-end scenarios of a bleak, hopeless future.

"What makes me happy, Dean, is being with my brother, my family. I'm not doing anything without you and if that means hunting until the day _**we **_die, then so be it."

Sam's unspoken words were loud and clear, piercing the shroud of darkness that encased them. They would stay together, watching each other's backs until the day one of them fucked up and ended up on the wrong side of dead. On that day, they trusted the other to do the right thing and take the body out for a salt and burn. Once the flames burned down, whoever was left standing would take out their favorite gun and say goodbye to the darkness one last time before moving on into the light.

"This is so fucked up. Don't you ever think?" Dean mumbled, but Sam had no problem hearing him.

"Think what?"

"That maybe we are so twisted up together that we can never be pulled apart."

"Yah," Sam whispered his assent, while staring at the distant ceiling.

"That's not normal." Dean intoned and Sam snorted.

"It's like you said, Dean. Our family is as far from normal as you can get."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't trade it for the world."

Dean reached out across the beds and wrapped his fingers around Sam's thick wrist, his fingers seeking his brother's strong pulse. Sam smiled at the darkness, flashing his teeth at their natural-born enemy and their only friend.

"Me neither. Family is all we got."

"If you think that I'm going to wear one of those broken heart necklaces now, you are sadly mistaken, little brother."

Sam laughed in the dark, the heaviness in his soul lightening a fraction.

"C'mon, Dean. You know you want to be my BFF."

"Your what?" Dean shot back, clearly stumped.

"Best friend forever."

"Dude, the fact that you know that makes you the biggest girl ever."

Dean removed his hand from Sam's wrist, but he didn't feel the loss as profoundly as before. Sam knew that his brother was at his side, alive and healthy, and that's all he really needed out of life.

Finished


End file.
